


i'll meet your eyes for the very first time (for the very last)

by only_because3



Series: thoughts that keep me on my feet [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 09:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_because3/pseuds/only_because3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next breath Quinn takes feels more like a gasp for air. “I’m glad that I came here.”</p><p>“Me too,” Rachel whispers. “I think we’ve needed one another just a little bit.” Quinn smiles just enough for Rachel to smile widely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll meet your eyes for the very first time (for the very last)

**Author's Note:**

> I started this ages ago and it still isn't totally finished but I'm hoping posting will give me some motivation to finish it (the end is so close I can taste it). As for my other works, I promise I'm still writing. College and work just seem to be overpowering. ANYWAY, this kind of sticks to canon but not really because it's a future fic. I'm loosely using details from season 4 and 5. A prequel of sorts to 'thoughts that keep me on my feet' Concerns the only time (in this verse) Quinn was in the Bushwick loft

She kind of feels like Rose from Titanic, right before she tries to kill herself. Not that she feels like killing herself, but she’s realizing very quickly as William keeps droning on about… god, she doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.

Quinn crosses her legs underneath the table, leaning back in her seat. They’ve been dating for a little over five months now and as Quinn stares at his face, she realizes she hates it. He looks like her father. His blonde hair is perfectly parted on the side and fluffed. There isn’t a hint of five o’clock shadow on his face and his stupid shirt, with his stupid pocket square, matches his eyes. She doesn’t know why it’s taken her till now to realize it but Puck had been right. This guy is a total douche.

William impatiently snaps for the waiter and complains that his steak isn’t rare enough. He turns, watches a different, female waitress passes, and grins to himself. The smile stays on his face as he looks back at Quinn and he doesn’t even apologize for being caught. Just shrugs his shoulders and continues eating his greens as he talks about his dad’s law firm. None of his behavior is different from how he’s been for the past five months but it grates on her more today than ever before.

How on earth had she ever thought she could be happy with this life?

She pushes her chair back, shaking her head. “What’re you doing,” he asks, visibly irritated that she’s interrupted him.

“Leaving.” She pulls on her coat as she stands.

“Is something wrong?”

She picks up her wine glass and downs the rest of her third glass. “Yes. I just realized I hate you.” His face contorts as he sets down his knife and fork. “Normally I would at least have enough manners to finish this meal before I broke up with you, but…” She kind of laughs as she grabs her bag. “My ass is ten times better than hers but even if it wasn’t, I demand more respect than the other sorority girls you’ve dated. I don’t come from money like yours which means I won’t put up with you treating me like your father treated your mother.”

It starts raining when she steps out on to the streets of New York City. _Of course_ it’s raining. She pulls her bag close to her body and walks quickly down the block. She’s come to the city enough within the past few years to know relatively how to get around but she’s also never been left in the middle of Brooklyn this late in rain she’s not prepared for. She ducks under the overhang of a Chinese restaurant, fishing her phone out of her pocket. She’s fairly sure she’s headed in the direction of the York station but she wants to make sure before she goes even further in the rain.

“Quinn?”

Quinn looks up, and there, standing in front of her in a bright pink raincoat and rubber boots, is Rachel Berry.

Rachel does not ask why Quinn is in New York nor does she ask why Quinn’s out in the rain without an umbrella. Instead, she explains that Kurt has a date but the Chinese place they’re standing in front of gave her their usual order before asking, “Are you hungry?” Quinn’s grilled chicken on a bed of lettuce sits untouched in a restaurant blocks back. Quinn nods and Rachel smiles, handing the open umbrella to Quinn.

Rachel does not look like the Rachel she knew. Though the pink raincoat takes Quinn back to the halls of McKinley, the rest of Rachel looks more grown up than Quinn could’ve imagined. Her eyes are thickly lined and her bangs are blunt along carefully plucked eyebrows while the rest of her hair is pulled up in a tight bun. Quinn can’t actually recall a time Rachel has been so done up outside of a performance, much less on a Saturday night Rachel seems to intend to stay in. Quinn’s eyes dart to the ground to find Rachel’s legs bare between the hem of the raincoat and the top of her rubber boots. There’s no way the girl isn’t freezing; Quinn herself is wearing slacks and a heavy coat and still manages to feel a shiver run through her.

Rachel lists off the contents of the plastic bags swinging against her leg as they walk but then falls silent, only speaking to alert Quinn where they’re going. Quinn debates commenting on how Rachel has changed but she sees no need to state the obvious. She settles for asking if Rachel’s heard from Puck recently and holding the door to Rachel’s building open.

\--

Quinn looks around Rachel’s apartment after she tosses her used chopsticks into what has become their trash bag. It’s very obviously decorated by Kurt but then, maybe not. Maybe Rachel had more of an influence than Quinn would expect.

But it doesn’t matter because it’s nice, a lot nicer than her single dorm room, likely because this place feels homey. Or at least, Quinn thinks it does. This is what she imagines a home would feel like.

Quinn sags in her seat. Weren’t you supposed to find yourself in college? She looks over at Rachel, who laughs at the joke on the tv that Quinn’s missed. They haven’t talked beyond superficial things, and of course what they think of Puck’s new girlfriend, but Quinn can tell that Rachel’s changed. Just looking at her and listening to the near silence Rachel’s allowed them to slip into is proof of that. But Quinn… She’s still as lost as she was in high school. She’s stayed exactly the same. Which is why she just wasted five months of her life on a guy who she hated but knew would provide for her if she married him.

Quinn blinks when she feels her eyes start to well up with tears and she feels the couch beneath her shift. Rachel’s looking at her nervously and it’s almost like Quinn can see all of the words Rachel hasn’t let slip behind Rachel’s brown eyes. “I don’t understand how this is still somehow my weakness,” Rachel says lightly, a small laugh following her words. Quinn furrows her eyebrows only for Rachel to smile as if she were shy. “I hate seeing you cry. I always have.”

“I hate how much you’ve seen me cry.” Quinn rolls back her shoulders and clears her throat as Rachel laughs a little louder. “I don’t get why caring about me is the one trait that seems to have stuck with you.”

Rachel cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“You’re different,” Quinn says simply. Rachel looks like she doesn’t quite believe Quinn and when Quinn scoots to the edge of the couch, Rachel’s hand flies to grip her forearm. Rachel pulls back the minute Quinn looks down at their meeting skin, ducking her head just so. “College did what is was supposed to do for you.”

“And what’s that?”

Quinn stacks their empty take out boxes and throws them in the trash bag before using a napkin to wipe down the coffee table. “You’re different,” Quinn repeats. “I’ve stayed the same.”

“Have you?” Quinn looks back at Rachel who curls a little further into the couch. “I don’t think the Quinn Fabray I knew would have come back to my apartment. Certainly not when this is the first time we’ve seen each other in three years.”

She doesn’t correct Rachel. Truthfully, Quinn saw her about a year ago at an audition. Quinn had been trying out for a chorus member while Rachel was actually going for a part. Quinn nailed her audition. Rachel did not.

“If we had run into each other any earlier, I would have probably ignored you,” Quinn states, scratching the back of her head. “But I walked out on a date tonight.” Rachel’s eyebrows rise and Quinn looks down at her pants that are still not dry. “Puck told me months ago that I should dump him but…” She shrugs before looking at Rachel with an ill placed smirk. “Guess I’m still just a bit too much like my mother.”

Rachel frowns and cautiously moves just a little bit closer to Quinn again. “Kurt thinks college muzzled me.” Rachel’s fingertips tap along the knob of Quinn’s wrist before slipping down and swirling against Quinn’s pulse. “I think it’s terribly sad that he’s right.” Quinn nods, turning her arm so that her palm is exposed to the ceiling. “Different isn’t always good, Quinn.”

“Same isn’t always good either.” Quinn’s fingers ache to curl around Rachel’s when her palm becomes Rachel’s playground but Quinn forces her hand to stay flat. The next breath Quinn takes feels more like a gasp for air. “I’m glad that I came here.”

“Me too,” Rachel whispers. “I think we’ve needed one another just a little bit.” Quinn smiles just enough for Rachel to smile widely.

\--

She imagined that they would share more after that and Quinn isn’t sure whether or not she’s glad they don’t. Rachel wordlessly goes into the kitchen. Quinn watches as Rachel slowly moves through the kitchen. First, Rachel takes two wine glasses from the set in the open cabinets. She crouches down, pulling back a curtain on another cabinet to reveal a few bottles of wine, and Rachel looks back at Quinn for a moment before grabbing a bottle. “Perhaps this is silly,” Rachel says softly. Her back is still to Quinn and Quinn sits staring at the way Rachel’s arm bends at the elbow to uncork the wine. Once the pop rings through the loft, Rachel’s arm falls back to her side. “But do you ever think of him?”

Quinn has to take her eyes off Rachel then. She chooses to stare down at her feet and the forgotten heels that lay carelessly next to them. “I try not to think of things I’m not sure I regret.” It’s quiet as Rachel fills the glasses and neither of them speak until Rachel offers Quinn her glass, the blonde murmuring, “Thank you.”

Quinn briefly considers asking Rachel the same question before determining it’d be silly to ask. But then, Quinn isn’t quite as sure it would be anymore. The Rachel she thinks she knows probably remembers Finn everyday. She doesn’t know the Rachel that sits down on the couch. Maybe this Rachel, years after the death of the boy they both loved, only thinks of Finn when Quinn does (when an old Journey song meets their ears, when memories of Lima come floating back overwhelmingly and unexpectedly, when they meet the rare person who happens to smile just as wide and goofy as he did).

“Are you seeing anyone,” Quinn asks.

Rachel quirks her eyebrow her and looks at Quinn strangely before laughing just a little bit. “I'm spending my Saturday night with you, Quinn."

A blush appears faintly on Quinn's cheeks. "It was a fair question," Quinn says and then takes a sip of the white wine. "Not every Saturday night is date night."

"I suppose you're right," Rachel concedes. "But no, I'm not seeing anyone. Too much work and never any payoff it seems."

Quinn raises her glass at that and takes another drink. "I should commit that to memory."

They fall back into silence but when Quinn glances back at Rachel, she catches Rachel staring at her. Rachel has never had a particularly good poker face. “Nothing would’ve stopped you from asking before.”

Rachel smiles. “You’re not happy that I’ve gained some tact?”

“In your line of work, tact is not something you need.”

“Is it not our line of work anymore,” Rachel asks with an arched brow.

Quinn shakes her head. “No. Not anymore.” Rachel doesn’t press for more and Quinn lets a few moments pass before quietly saying, “Well? What was it?”

Rachel finishes off her glass and then sets it on the coffee table. Once she’s relaxed back into the couch, she looks Quinn straight in the eye. “Why did we never keep in touch?”

A soft sigh escapes Quinn as she considers the question briefly. “We were never really friends, Rachel… That, paired with the fact that you were changing and I was stuck, didn’t really give us any ground to stand on, did it?”

“No, we weren’t friends,” Rachel agrees. Quinn notices for the first time the laugh lines at the corner of Rachel’s eyes. “We were more than that.” Quinn looks down at her glass, too much of the coward she's always been to meet Rachel's eyes at that moment. What Rachel said was the truth. Quinn just isn't quite sure she can deal with that yet.

Quinn swallows the rest of her wine and Rachel, once again wordlessly, takes their glasses into the kitchen to refill them. “Did you know that I slept with Santana?”

Rachel pours more into their glasses than last time. “Did you know I had a pregnancy scare?”

When Rachel comes back with their glasses, the small smile she wears matches Quinn's. "Santana never could keep a secret," Quinn says and Rachel nods.

\--

By the time Quinn finds herself, more or less, draped in the chair and Rachel is spread out lazily on the couch, they’ve moved on to red wine. Rachel has filled what would’ve been silence if it was left up to Quinn. Hearing Rachel talk almost as much as she used to in high school warms Quinn, though Quinn chalks it up to the wine.

“I think Kurt is surprised I haven’t given up yet… That all the roles of a chorus girl, some nameless background characters haven’t disillusioned me.” Quinn’s head lolls to the side and she watches Rachel’s lips purse around the rim of her glass, carefully tilting the cup until the red liquid can slowly slip into Rachel’s waiting mouth. “But he doesn’t get it… Even if I’m just part of the set, that’s enough for me.”

Quinn stares up at the ceiling. “No it isn’t.”

“It is,” Rachel retains. “So long as it’s on my own terms.”

Quinn looks back at Rachel then, who takes another sip of wine. “You deserve to be top billed.” Quinn has seen what the stage can do to Rachel and what Rachel can do to the stage and her audience. Rachel has the kind of talent that could take breath away…

Rachel repeats, “On my own terms.” Quinn doesn’t ask why Rachel keeps making that point because she knows that Rachel has slipped just enough into the girl Quinn used to know that Rachel will freely tell her. Quinn counts to 43 in her head before Rachel speaks again. “I got a supporting role once. Justice in Rock of Ages. I had to blow the casting director.” It’s more vulgar than Quinn was expecting from Rachel but not exactly surprising (Quinn had already assumed it would be along those lines). “For _Rock of Ages_!” Rachel shakes her head but then kind of shrugs. “I had a great time, got good reviews. But the whole thing, for lack of a better phrase, left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Quinn snorts and Rachel looks at Quinn as if she has two heads for a moment before dissolving into giggles herself. “Do you regret it?”

Rachel finishes what little is left in her glass. “No. I get parts with stand out lines now… Didn’t help as much as I’d hoped but it did.”

Quinn relaxes more in her chair as she sips from her glass. She holds the glass out for Rachel to take so that Rachel doesn’t have to get up so soon. Then, she does something almost equally uncharacteristic. “Santana isn’t the only woman I’ve slept with,” Quinn shares. It almost physically pains her to be so open but wasn’t she unhappy with staying the same? For not growing into a functional, emotional human being? Maintaining her mask is exhausting. And if Rachel, over the course of this night, can pretend she didn’t change quite so much, then Quinn can try to pretend that she changed just a little. “I suppose it could be considered dating, but, well, not really. I wasn’t seeing anyone else and neither was she. Rarely left my dorm room and I’m sure I was mostly awful because I’m a coward when it comes to feelings.” Quinn sighs. “I think I could’ve liked her… Could’ve _tried_ anyway.”

Rachel passes the wine back and Quinn greedily finishes the glass. “You deserve to be happy, Quinn.”

Quinn licks her lips, shrugging just so. She doesn’t look at Rachel but she knows the other girl staring at her and it almost feels like Rachel may touch her, put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. Quinn shivers and tenses but the feeling of Rachel’s palm against her shoulder doesn’t come.

Rachel clears her throat. When she can see Rachel standing in her peripheral, hand waiting for the glass, Quinn looks up at the brunette. Rachel looks so sad for her and Quinn hates it.

Rachel takes the glass but her fingers linger over Quinn’s, Rachel’s nail dragging along the length of Quinn’s ring finger. “We need more wine.”


End file.
